This painting was listed in the Museum`s inventories and catalogues as an anonymous work by the Dutch school, although in the 1889 catalogue it was noted that Bredius had suggested it should be attributed to Aert Anthonisz (1580-1620).

On stylistic grounds the scene could be considered comparable with the output of Claes Claesz. Wou during the last stage in his career, by which time the rigid Mannerism of his early years had given way to a more painterly style based on bold, heavily loaded brushstrokes. It was then that Wou became specialised in storm scenes, all of them variations on the same compositional idea -two or three three-mast ships tossed by the choppy sea- which appear to have been intended solely to represent the forces of nature unleashed.

Examples include the scenes in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, signed cc w o v; the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest; the Hallwylska-Museet in Stockholm; the Pennsylvanian Museum in Philadelphia; and in the Centrale Muzeum in Gdansk, which bears the closest resemblance to the present work. The painting is listed in the royal inventories and Museum catalogues as the companion piece to the Naval Battle off a Rocky Coast attributed here in to Hendrick Cornelisz. Vroom (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, pp. 318).